Wings Over Earth
by Cyberwolf
Summary: ~Two worlds, two stories...but not for long. Soon there will be only one~You might wanna read the chapters again, they're all revised. And chapter iv is up too. ^_^
1. Memories in a Dream

Itetsuku hoshi no yami e
    
    tsumugu inori ga
    
    Tooi anata no sora ni 
    
    todoku you ni...__
    
    _(Towards the darkness of the frozen stars_
    
    _A spinning prayer_
    
    _May it reach your distant sky....)_
    
            - Nusumenai Houseki (_Radical Dreamers),_ Chrono Cross OST

***

Moonlight streamed in through the large windows, providing just enough illumination to turn black darkness into dim silver-gray. It fell in faint streaks of light upon the still form of a young boy who lay asleep on a bedroll on the floor, disdaining the four-poster bed in the center of the room. His eyelids twitched and fluttered rapidly, showing that the pilot known as Heero Yuy was deep into a dream.

He was in combat, as so often happened in his dreams – to be more specific, he was in a formal fencing match. It shouldn't have been so bad, considering that his battles were more usually more life-and-death, lawless, no-holds-barred fights than polite, ceremonial fencing. But, his blood still sang with the half-nervous, half-exhilarating rush he always got when he was in his most intense battles.

 At first, his opponent was that ugly blond boy from the boarding school, an odd and seemingly ludicrous enemy to face, but he was performing much better than he had in real life. However...

Analyzing the other boy's fighting style, even as he himself was kept busy dodging and weaving in a purely defensive strategy, Heero coldly, rationally concluded that the other was still quite a ways from matching him.

Heero deftly twisted around a feint made too far, a small smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. As sometimes happened, his concentration had narrowed down to a single point of focus. It was like the fragmentary thoughts that make up the mind of any human all snapped together, to form a single, solitary, clear-edged purpose: defeat the enemy. 

Heero shifted his stance to a slightly more aggressive one, preparing to ram the blade through the other boy's faceshield. Before he could repeat history, however, the outline of the blond boy rippled and wavered, like the surface of a pool disturbed by a thrown pebble.

If it weren't far out of character for the fifteen-year-old soldier boy, he would have gaped quite openly. Before his astonished eyes, the boy in front of him morphed into Wufei. The boy's white fencing gear changed into Wufei's usual blue-and-white outfit, and the slim rapier in his hand became a long, curved katana. 

Needless to say, the difficulty factor of the match went up by quite a bit. Heero had to rethink his strategy, adapting to Wufei's different style and skill level. And before he could fully adapt, his opponent morphed again. 

This time he changed to Duo. Then Trowa, then Treize, then Zechs. They seemed to get better and better as they changed, and he was getting weary, more and more unable to hold his own.

Then it became opponents he had never even seen before, all of whom had clothing and weapons of a style that was very unusual and somehow reminded Heero of medieval fantasy stories...

...a man with light blue hair and a violet mark under his eye, holding a sword of somewhat strange design in an obviously-prosthetic arm...

....a blond-haired leopard girl, then, a moment later, a blue-haired one who could have been the first's twin, both bare-handed but agile enough to make up for the lack of weaponry...

...a silvery-haired boy with a manic gleam in his eyes...

...a tall, blue-eyed man, blond and handsome...

And finally, a young man with dark sienna eyes and unruly, raven-black hair who smiled at him fondly. 

Heero felt a strange jolt then, as if he had been expecting to meet this person. As if he'd been waiting since forever for a glimpse of him. Why? He had never met him before. But there was something familiar about him...

Heero peered closer as he used his saber to block the man's broadsword. He started, his shock almost costing him a glancing blow before he regained enough sense to jump quickly away. 

The man did not seem inclined to charge at him, content to merely look at him with a calm, serious - but not grim - expression on his face. 

Heero circled warily, but his sword was held low. He had no intention of attacking. He only wanted to look closer at the man's face. Now he knew why he was familiar...

...it was almost the same face he saw in the mirror every time he used it.

Then suddenly, he was no longer facing off against the swordsman, but walking through a shadowy valley. It was narrow, sheer cliffs of grayish rock rearing up on either side of the valley, making it seem like a corridor. He could tell it was night, but he couldn't see the sky for the trailing vines and tree limbs - brown with death - that branched out overhead.

His body felt peculiar, something slightly...off, for lack of a better word, about the feel of it. But it wasn't a strictly _bad_ feeling. For some reason, he felt oddly…well, energy-filled. Not bouncy or hyper – merely a quiet, unquestioning certainty that in his limbs was the strength to do whatever he needed to do. 

He realized his right hand was clenched in a tight fist; his muscles began to twinge slightly. He looked at his hand, and started in surprise. He'd completely forgotten that he was still clutching the thin-bladed sword he'd used during his fights. However, it wasn't a sword he held any longer, but rather a length of blazing, furious energy...a beam saber. 

"What..?" Heero stammered. When no sound came from his mouth, he knew something was wrong. He looked down.

His first impression was that someone had put him in a suit of armor - a set of sleek, smooth metallic plates interlocking seamlessly to cover his own body. It had a strangely familiar color scheme...

Then, he realized it wasn't armor: it was Wing Gundam Zero. Had Dr. J finally completed that bioboost mecha suit he was always talking about? If he had, then he really shouldn't be surprised to see that he'd modeled it after his greatest brainchild - or that he'd use Heero as the guinea pig for it yet again. 

Then, he realized that he wasn't in Wing...he WAS Wing. He was a giant fighting mecha, down to the bone/metal beam, not merely encased in a shell. 

Too bemused to be unbelieving, he moved his hand up to his eyes/sensors, flexing it experimentally. It reacted just as his real hand would. He tried to run, then somersault. He pulled the moves off perfectly.

Before he could calm down and really reflect on the unreal aspect of this whole situation, something happened to serve its turn on the let's-surprise-Heero routine this whole dream was taking. Without any conscious thought on his part, the thin Gundamium wings on his back unfolded, the jet boosters mounted on his back flared with white-blue plasma, and quite suddenly Heero found himself soaring up into the night sky, breaking through the canopy of foliage to behold a breathtaking panorama. 

Heero was a pilot, one of the best in generations, and trained in almost every sort of flight-capable machine invented. He had never, however, flown by his own power, open to the elements and entirely in control, like a bird on the wing. He had - as had any other person who was intimately involved with flying - dreamed of it, fantasized about it, but he had never thought about really experiencing it. 

Now he was, and the experience was exhilarating. He abandoned himself to the elation racing through his veins, forgetting all the doubt and suspicion that otherwise colored his perception of the world. He looped, and spun, and swooped, and turned in the air, taking full advantage of his new flight capability. It is doubtful that a wilder, more joyously spirited gymnastics routine was ever performed than Heero's unthinking dance in the air. 

He rose above the clouds and reveled in the thin, clear air above, where a billion stars twinkled, brighter than he'd ever seen, and the crescent moon cast a glimmering sheen on the surface of everything. He let out a long, delighted laugh, half-drunk with the beauty and glory and joy of it all. 

But mecha aren't supposed to be able to laugh. 

As this thought crossed his mind, Heero looked down at himself. He was back in his own body once again. Everything was normal again, right down to his jeans and green tanktop. What _weren't_ normal were the giant wings arching out of his shoulders, shining silvery-white in the moonlight. 

Despite all his training, all the schooling to never show emotion, Heero couldn't help himself. He gaped. His cobalt eyes widened. His mouth dropped slightly open. Despite the strangeness of everything that had happened so far, this was the strangest, and Heero was having trouble registering it. He double-checked everything, trying to convince himself.

They were definitely wings. 

They were definitely coming out from HIS body. 

This was definitely way too weird for him.

One of Heero's rules was 'If you don't know it, LEARN it.' This was associated with the rule 'Ignorance is death'. He had quite a few rules like this, including 'Carelessness is death' (why he was always so thorough) 'Human affection is death' (why Relena was making very slow progress with him) and 'Dr. J's cooking is death' (learned the hard way)

So once he confirmed that, yes, he did now possess an extra pair of feathered limbs, he decided to test his new wings. He set off into the night, again taking pleasure in the flying. He flew much swifter and more agilely than in his Wing Gundam 'body', turning his body to the currents of air as knowledgeably as a sailor navigates the ocean currents, using his wings as if he'd been born knowing how.

He dove through the cloud layer, enjoying the feel of cool mist on his face. He shot through the bottom of the cloudbanks like a stone launched from a catapult, spreading his wings and braking expertly in mid-air before a vast city, glimmering with the warm yellow lights of a thousand lamps. It was in a deep valley, flanked on either side by massive cliffs of dark rock like natural walls, and in the very back, rose a huge mountain . Heero hovered in the air, gazing at the scene with oddly hungry eyes. 

His reverie was broken as a lance of pain suddenly shot through his entire body. He dropped almost fifty feet before he could regain the presence of mind to stop his fall. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he tried to determine the source of it. 

There was a knife embedded in his left wing. 

It was amazing how pain dulled the senses of some people - and how it sharpened the awareness of others. In one moment, Heero had memorized every aspect of the knife, folding in his wing slightly to take a closer look at the weapon. It had a wide black blade, hard to see in the night. There was a large red stone, not exactly jewel-like but very smooth, set in the silver crossguard of the weapon. It seemed unlike the knives he saw everyday, like the ones Catherine had or the switchblades the everyday street toughs employed. It seemed more...elaborate than those, more like an ornamental piece, though Heero could attest that it was just as sharp as any of its counterparts.

The pain had not in any way abated, and Heero winced as a fresh wave of pain swept through him, blurring his mind. He closed his eyes, trying to regain some control. When he opened them again, panting slightly, the red stone was shining. Heero gazed at it in hypnotized wonder. There seemed to be a black glyph now visible in the center of the stone...

And then his world exploded in fire and hurt.

Heero bolted upright in his bedroll. His body felt achy all over, and his breathing was rapid and shallow. He made no effort to control it, trying just to gather his scattered thoughts.

It took him a minute to remember where he was - in his room at the safehouse. He was relieved that he'd been able to check the scream which had been hovering in the back of his throat as he awoke - if he had, the others, who slept in rooms not too far from his, might have heard it and gone to investigate. 

He checked the digital numbers shining on the night table to his left: it was midnight. And there was a mission to complete tomorrow morning. 

He collapsed ungracefully back onto the bedroll, hoping that no nightmares would plague him further. His eyes closed slowly in slumber, and his face relaxed as it never did while he was awake.

So he did not notice the silvery feather fluttering out of the open window, its edges tinged red with blood. 

***

TBC

AN: This is the beginning of the fic series that is truly my baby, more even than _Alternatives_ or _Gundamon._ I'm hoping for a good reception! ^_^ 


	2. Memories of Fanelia

nanika ga shoumetsu shite mo nanika ga futatabi yadotte
    
    wakare ni kureta hohoemi wa tsuyoku ikiyou to yuu
    
    anata kara no MESE-JI
    
    _(Even if something lapses away, something will live once again._
    
    _When you gave me a smile as we parted, it was your message for me_
    
    _To truly live with all my heart)_
    
    _        -_Yubiwa, Escaflowne Movie OST

***

Life was good.

So thought the young King of Fanelia as he leaned back against a tall, fragrant mound of hay. The creaking of the wagon provided a soft lullaby as it rolled over the gently twisting roads to his capital. Van Slanzar de Fanel was a king, and certainly entitled to much better transportation, but pomp and ceremony and unnecessary luxury had never been a big need for the young man. The country of Fanelia - called by many the Mountain Kingdom - produced strong, hardy, tough people, built to survive in cold and darkness as well as warmth and light. And they respected their king more for his fairness and ability to take his lumps along with the best of them than they would have for extravagant shows of wealth and power.

'Life is good,' Van thought again as he stared lazily up into the clear blue sky. He had much to be thankful for. Fanelia was a happy, smoothly running kingdom, its inhabitants prosperous and fond of their king. It could easily be called one of the three most powerful nations on Gaea, owing nothing to any other nation and its beautiful capital fully restored to its original splendor. This was especially unbelievable considering how badly razed Fanelia was during the Zaibach invasion. But thanks in part to the people's strong spirit, Van's leadership, and a great amount of good luck, Fanelia had risen from the ashes of its destruction like the legendary phoenix.

But more than that, more than Fanelia's good fortune, which had once been his only concern - it was Hitomi Kanzaki van Fanel who made Van so happy. Van often couldn't believe that he'd been able to gain such a perfect, beautiful woman as his queen, as his wife…as his soulmate. Every time he lay awake in their bed, watching Hitomi's face as she slept, or every time she bent over to whisper in his ear as they kept court, some observation that cut to the heart of the matter and kept him from losing his head; every time she'd look at him with love shining so clear in those beautiful green eyes of hers, running her hands through his dark hair down to stroke his wings, or every time he hugged her close, burying his face in her fawn-colored hair and inhaling the distinct scent of flowers and wind that always surrounded her - he gave thanks to any and all deities that could hear him that they'd emerged from all their suffering and loneliness to find each other.

And now Hitomi was pregnant. Van gave a small smile as he thought about it.

The young King had been away from the palace, roving around the kingdom, for two weeks now - checking border posts and townships and things like that. He wanted no advance word of his approach to reach those he wanted to observe, and thus traveled without entourage or royal guard. He dressed more like a roving wanderer than a king, and consequently saw things he might not have otherwise. Everything had checked out fine aside from a few petty officials abusing their power. Van had immediately removed them from office, replacing them with honest, forthright men and women from the townships themselves. His people, who had never liked having to bow to a leader they knew was wrong, had been very supportive about his choices -Van had been developing into a good judge of character. That had been about the extent of the trouble. And now he was almost home and…

'Van!' Van bolted upright, looking frantically right and left. That had been Hitomi he'd heard! But how…? She was still in the palace - confined there, really. She was due in a few months. 'VAAAAAAN!' he heard again, in his mind. The psychic link between Van and Hitomi had never quite faded away, but this was the first time in years - since the war ended - that Van had needed to be called through it.

Van leapt up into the air, his wings spreading and catching the wind as he flew for all he was worth back to the palace. The wolf-man who'd been driving the wagon gaped as his King flew off. Van couldn't care less as he sped away, intent on answering Hitomi's call.

* * *

Millerna snapped at the confused servant, "Get me some hot water!" The servant hurried away, more than a bit scared by his normally sweet, composed Queen screaming the castle down.

"It's okay, it's okay, come on, Hitomi, you're doing fine…" crooned Millerna. She was somewhat concerned, though she didn't allow the emotion to show in her voice. Hitomi's water had broken several hours ago – quite ahead of schedule. _Months_ ahead of schedule. It had been a good thing that Millerna, with all her healing talents, had been visiting Fanelia.

And so far, Hitomi's labor had been pain-filled. Hitomi kept calling for her husband. Millerna was also sincerely wishing Van were there. She knew how annoyingly underfoot soon-to-be fathers could be, (Dryden was, and she was only two months along - it had taken an hour of arguing to get him to allow her this sidetrip to Fanelia while he was on another business trip) but this was different. Hitomi needed Van there. And considering how hard her labor was turning out to be, whatever Hitomi wanted, Hitomi should get.

Millerna spun around, her sky-blue eyes alighting on another nervous servant hovering near the doorway. "You! Get me the bag I left on top of my dresser, the one with the dark gray roots inside!" she instructed, taking advantage of the arrival of another convenient errand-runner.

* * *

Van sped towards the palace, flying faster than he ever had before. Bolts of fire raced up and down his shoulders as his muscles burned with fatigue. He whipped the air with his wings so fast that he half-feared they would break right off. And the thing was, he didn't care. Anything, to get to Hitomi.

He pushed himself harder as the palace came within sight. Below him, the people pointed up at the hurrying figure of their king as he zoomed over them, towards the palace. Somehow, he knew which room Hitomi was in and aimed for its window accordingly.

"Hitomi!" cried Van, bursting into the room. The people in the room turned to regard this dramatic entrance-by-window with wide, incredulous eyes. Van didn't notice. All he could see was the frighteningly pale face of his Queen. He could feel his heart stop.

Then Hitomi's green eyes flew open and she smiled at Van, whose heart resumed its normal rhythm with a jarring thump. It was only then that Van noticed blonde Princess Millerna bending over Hitomi. She straightened and turned to Van.

"Hail, King of Fanelia," she said, face and voice solemn, but with a wide smile seeming to lurk just below the surface. "Behold your son." As if on cue to Millerna's words, a loud cry filled the air - the loud cry of a newborn child. Millerna placed the infant, swaddled in white linen, in Hitomi's waiting arms.

Hitomi looked tenderly upon the child, eyes filled with love. "Our son…." She looked up at Van, her entire face alight. "Our son, Van. OUR son…" She began to rock the baby in her arms gently, softly crooning a lullaby. The words were unfamiliar to Van - it seemed like a foreign language. He supposed it was from her homeworld. It was a pretty tune, and it was having the desired effect on the baby boy. His loud yells died away into soft hiccups as he looked up wonderingly at his mother.

Van slowly moved closer, quiet and slightly afraid, as if this was all some strange, fragile soap bubble that would burst if he moved too abruptly. He moved beside Hitomi and, placing a hand on her shoulder, looked down upon the small, squirming newborn who was the ultimate proof of Van and Hitomi's love.

The baby in question was suddenly aware of movement just beyond his mother. For a person who'd been out in the world for all of two minutes, he had surprisingly good control of his senses. He was able to pick out a dark-topped shape just beyond the light brown that was his mother. His eyesight sharpened as it got used to light, and he was able to pick out a pair of silvery, shining things just behind the other shape…

The newborn heir to the Fanelian throne gave his first smile as he raised his little arms to his father. He made a happy gurgling noise, and grabbed a feather from Van's wingtip. Van started. He'd completely forgotten that his wings were still out. Then he smiled, and picked up the baby from his wife's arms.

He held him gingerly, as if unsure what to do, but also gently. Hitomi smiled also, looking from Van's awestruck expression as he regarded his infant son to the baby himself, who was currently examining Van's feather intently. Hitomi wondered if he'd inherited the wings that were Van's Ryujinbito heritage. He certainly seemed fascinated enough by them.

Van raised the baby into the air, unknowingly mirroring his father's actions of twenty-five years earlier. He said, "I name thee Riander Lacour van Fanel, my son, and Crown Prince of Fanelia. May thy life be long and filled with good fortune."

The servants around him set up a loud cheer at this traditional welcoming of a newborn prince. Some raced outside, to spread the word and soon, the pealing of bells echoed all over the city as the people cheered and feasted on the streets. The royal guard raised their swords in salute, smiling broadly as the silvery tones of a dozen trumpets added their voice to the general clamor. Later that night bonfires would blaze from one side of the country to another in honor of their new prince.

Inside, though, the baby that was the cause for all this celebration, the newly named Riander van Fanel, slumbered peacefully in his mother's arms. Van stood proudly nearby, gazing fondly down on his wife and son.

Yes, life was VERY good.

* * *

"Waaaaaaaah!" screamed the three-year-old Prince of Fanelia.

Hitomi, in the room next to the nursery, sighed and shook her head. Normally, little Riander had an amiable, happy temperament. He had an absolutely adorable face and the disposition to match it. He was sweet and charming and remarkably intelligent and precocious – and if anyone said otherwise, they'd best do it away from Hitomi.

But sometimes Riander got…restless. He'd wander around whatever room he was in, as if looking for something. If the door were unlocked, he'd slip out and wander around the palace. There had been a few panics because of that.

Riander hardly ever threw temper tantrums. For a toddler, he was especially easy-going. But when he DID, the whole castle knew about it. If given sufficient provocation, little Prince Riander would fly into an absolutely terrible rage, remarkably intense for one so young.

And about the only thing that could calm him down when he got worked up like that was Van taking him for a flight above the city. Riander really loved that, soaring in the thin clear air of the higher altitudes, looking downwards at the people of the kingdom, who had become used to these royal airflights and often waved at their passing king and king-to-be.

The one other thing - discovered when Van and Hitomi had to leave for a two day inspection tour and Riander cried for five hours straight - was when Merle strapped Riander to her back and took him 'roof-hopping'.

Hitomi shook her head. Even at the tender age of three, her son was already an adrenaline junkie. What with the flights, and the roof hopping, Riander was really half-bird, half-human, and half-cat. Wait…that was too many halves…

Smiling quietly at her thoughts, Hitomi walked over to the nursery. Merle, who like everyone in the palace (and most subjects in the city…and the farms…and…well, you get the idea) adored the young prince, had already arrived and was cuddling Riander to her. Riander, sensing an upcoming ride, was smiling his sweet, rather lopsided baby smile and bouncing excitedly in the harness specially made for him.

"Taking him for a ride, Merle?" Hitomi smiled at the younger woman. "Yes, Hitomi. You don't mind?" Merle inquired.

"No, no, go right ahead. Besides, Rian would never forgive me if I denied him this," Hitomi laughed. Merle laughed as well. The two women had laid to rest their initial antagonism, and now the only person closer to Merle than Hitomi was Van himself.

"Okay then. We'll be back in an hour," the cat-woman promised. "I'm also going to take Rian to see the Lake."

Merle hopped onto the windowsill. With a last parting wave to Hitomi, Merle leaped off into the air, landing sure-footedly on the roof of the palace. She then set off running across the length of the palace walls, Riander screaming with delight.

"Bye Merle!" Hitomi called out after them. She turned away from the window, chuckling a bit to herself. Most children took walks - it was just that Rian's consisted of racing across roof-ledges or winging swiftly across the sky.

* * *

"Happy birthday, Rian!" chorused the (disturbingly, at least for the servants who had to cook and clean up after all of them) large crowd of people who, despite coming from different corners of the planet, had traveled to Fanelia to celebrate its crown prince's fifth birthday.

"Blow out the candles, darling," cooed Hitomi. Riander grinned a gap-toothed, lopsided grin and proceeded to do so. The adults around him clapped while the children demanded a slice now that Rian was done.

Van smiled. This whole birthday-cake thing was a custom from Hitomi's world, but a rather nice one, he thought. He watched, amused, as the kids (Millerna and Dryden's daughter, the young Duke of Freid, and his own son) proceeded to gobble up the cake. The adults ate their slices more sedately. It was really too good to be rushed; Cook had outdone himself with the sweet confection in honor of Riander. (More specifically, in honor of Riander's sweet tooth)

Though everyone had been in Fanelia for a day already, at least, there was still a lot to talk about. So the adults, gathered in a loose circle around the fireplace, talked and laughed while the kids raced around the large room.

None of the parents had the slightest worry for their children's safety. They knew that twelve-year-old Chid was responsible beyond his years - running a duchy had that effect on one. He would look after Rian and Caria like the older brother neither had.

When the games had gotten to the tease-the-baby part (in this case, Millerna and Dryden's daughter, the Princess of Asturia, Caria) Allen rose and separated the kids. "Time to open the presents," announced Allen. "Yay!" cheered all three children.

He walked back to the fireplace, kids hanging on his legs and his shoulders, Chid trotting at his heels. Millerna and Hitomi smiled as he neared; he'd proven to be really great with the children. They hero-worshipped him.

They gathered around the table where the presents were heaped, Allen lifting Riander up so he could see them. "Wanna see mine first?" suggested Chid, eager to see his 'younger brother's reaction to it.

"No, mine!" insisted Caria. Riander solved that problem by grabbing Allen's present. "Ooh! Wow! Lookit what Uncle Allen got me!" cried Riander happily.

He held up a gleaming, well-crafted sword, sized perfectly for his five-year-old body.

"Allen!" hissed every female in the room. (In Merle's case, she really did hiss; no one was going to give her Riander-chan something that could cause a single hair on his adorable head to be hurt!)

"Wait!" Allen cried out, waving his hands in an attempt to placate several fuming females. He snatched the sword out of Riander's hands, who was showing it proudly to a curious Caria and Chid. He held it out in front of the girls. "See? Its edges are blunt. He wouldn't be able to cut butter with it. Would I give my own godson something dangerous?" he finished, hurt.

"Knowing you great thumping blade-crazy males, maybe," muttered Princess Eries. Everyone chuckled.

"Can I have my sword back?" demanded Rian impatiently.

The presents were soon all unwrapped. It turned out both Dryden and Van had been in on Allen's little gift; Dryden gave Rian a beautiful dark-blue-and-silver scabbard for his sword, plus a matching belt, while Van gave his little son protective gear - also in blue and silver - and a promise of fencing lessons starting next week.

Merle gave Rian a set of carved wooden soldiers, cleverly made and painted, for him to play with. He liked them and immediately selected one - a swordsman painted red - as his favorite, and stuck it in his pocket. Caria solemnly presented Rian with a box of expensive sweets from the finest shops in Asturia. Her mother had been very strict on the blond-haired little girl; she'd only eaten two of the sweets. Chid's present was waiting outside - a small bay pony of the type bred in the mountains of Freid, famous for their gentle nature and smooth, sure-footed gaits. It turned out that Rian would begin riding lessons along with his fencing ones next week. Rian insisted on naming his new pony after the giver, and so Chid had the dubious honor of being the namesake of the horse, now known as Chiddy. 

And so it went, till it was the children's bedtime. Their mothers (and aunt, in Chid's case) tucked them into their room and bade them goodnight. When all three were slumbering peacefully, they had gone back to the room for wine and talk.

That was the last time they all gathered together. The very next winter, while on the way to Asturia for Caria's birthday, the Fanelian entourage was caught in an avalanche that cascaded down the sides of the steep mountain they were passing with (as Hitomi later said) the speed of a bullet train. 

Merle ended incapacitated for two weeks and Van's guard lost fifteen of its finest members. Twelve more members of the party were injured, including both Hitomi and Van. And Prince Riander was lost, as well. They never found the body.

* * *

AN: I don't know as much about _Vision of Escaflowne_ as GW, so if there are aberrations and impossibilities here, please forgive me. (bows) Take it as an AU, if you like. Anyway, hope this prologue doesn't incite homicidal rages, as it did when I showed it to a friend who insisted it was "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" ^_^

Thanks to _everyone_ who reviewed the first prologue. Sweet balm for an author's soul. =) Domo arigato gozaima, minna-sama! (glomps)


	3. Echoes of the Past

_Coming down_

_The world turned over_

_Cos angels fall without you there_

_And I go on as you get colder_

_Or are you someone's prayer?_

            -Black Balloons, Goo Goo Dolls

They faced off grimly, neither boy ready to give in. Cobalt eyes glared into violet, both sets unblinking and angry and unwilling to be the first to look away. The hallway around them was empty except for the two young Gundam pilots; the other three had left the safehouse they were currently in to check on their Gundams.

The words Duo had spoken hung in the air like edged weapons, ready to cut once you held them. Heero was the first to break the taut silence.

He said, very flatly, "Duo, there is _nothing_ wrong with me."

"Don't give me that!" Duo snapped, worry making his normally-jovial voice sharp. "I've been watching you; there's no other reason you'd act the way you do…"

"Which is?"

"You go around with bloodshot eyes, as if you don't sleep. Your sortie rate in Wing went up, _but_ you're doing just the same during sims, and you always look like you're about to black out after using your Gundam. And you're growing paler and thinner - not much, but enough to see…if you look for it…" Duo said, softly, looking Heero in the eye. 

Heero returned his wary, challenging gaze, and asked, "How do you know how to look for it, then?" His voice was sarcastic, more to show his contempt of Duo's opinions then to get a reply, but Duo answered him anyway.

"I…I grew up on the streets, Heero, you know that. And I saw my friends start to act like you did…maybe because of a girl, or of a missing friend, or maybe it was just living on the edge of society that got to them…but then, after a while, they'd die. Always, they'd die. Because no human can stand up to that type of destruction for long…not even you, Mr Perfect Soldier. You're doing the same thing they did, and you'll die the same way too…because of what you're doing to yourself…"

"And what am I doing to myself?" This was said in a tone as if whatever Duo said would be far off the mark, but Duo forged on. He'd seen it too many times to be wrong. 

"You're taking stimulants before you go out to fight in Wing Zero," he breathed, a cold feeling settling in his stomach as he did so. He'd thought about it, he was sure of it, but it wasn't until he actually said the words out loud that the grimness of the situation hit him…hit him like a blow to the head. What had happened to Heero, the coldest, strongest one of all the five - the pinnacle to whom the others looked for inspiration, however unconsciously - what had happened to him to make him turn to chemical courage to supplement his own? If he fell, they'd lose their pillar - their Heart of the Universe, as Quatre would have said - and if he fell, what was to keep the others from falling too? Duo held back a shudder as the implications of his accusation hit him.

Heero, however, did not seem very impressed. "For the _last_ time, Duo - I AM NOT A JUNKIE. Get the idea out of your twisted little mind," he told Duo dismissively, an annoyingly superior expression on his face. He spun around sharply on his heel, every bit the soldier doing the about-face and putting the other boy out of mind.

Duo stared angrily at Heero's receding back as the Japanese pilot walked away.

***

Heero walked through the hallways of the safehouse, careful to keep his back straight and his steps unhurried. He could feel Duo's angry eyes on him. And after _that_ accusation, he couldn't afford to let Duo see any signs of weakness, his usual need for concealment made even greater than usual. 

He finally reached his room. Keying in the unlock code with only slightly shaking hands, he stepped inside. The door silently slid closed behind him. The room was dark, without even the dim illumination of moon or stars - it was a cloudy night. It fit Heero's frame of mind perfectly.

He stood very still for a long moment, his dark blue eyes flickering over the few objects in his room without actually seeing anything. Then, heaving a shuddery breath, Heero slumped against the steel door, sliding down to end up seated on the cold floor, hugging his knees to his chest. He rested his forehead on the top of his knees - finally, in the solitude of his room, allowing himself to give into his weariness. 

He thought he'd hidden the strain he was under, but Duo proved he hadn't quite succeeded. He closed his eyes briefly. One more problem he didn't need. Now, on top of everything else, he had to keep Duo from becoming suspicious enough to tell anyone else. 

The trouble was, Heero didn't quite know how he'd do that. He couldn't explain why these things were happening to him…explain _why? _Hell, he wasn't even sure _what_ was happening to him. 

There was his behavior with Wing Zero. It had, for the last two or three weeks, followed a very specific pattern: Take off. Fight. Black out. Wake up as Wing Zero lands in the hangar and the mechanics rush to help him out and tell him how well he'd fought.

The ferocity and accuracy of his attacks when he 'blanked' seemed to increase, rather his Gundam faltering in the air, so Heero thought it probably wasn't a real faint. More probably it was an extremely focused battle rage…a bit like how the ZERO system would have worked, if all traces of that program hadn't been purged from the face of Earth and Colonies. But this rationalization, though Heero tried hard to accept it, didn't ring quite true. If it _was_ battle rage, why was his memory of it wiped out so completely? He would have thought he'd have, at least, a few snatches of memory. And further - why was it happening to him so often?

And then there were the dreams. Now, Heero's education had not included dreams. He did not make a point of analyzing his dreams, nor of talking to others about their own, so he hadn't any idea of what a 'normal' dream should be like. All he knew was that these dreams were different than any he'd ever had before. They were surprisingly clear and followed a linear sequence, rather than being disjointed and jumping around from one point to another. Unlike his other dreams, these did not fade away as he awoke, but remained sharp and distinct and unfragmented in his memory, appearing whole in his mind anytime he chose to call it up. 

Heero was a great believer in the virtues of data analysis, and took advantage of this unusual clarity of dream to enter an account of each dream into a file in his computer. Slowly, couched in the brief, efficient phrases Heero wrote in, the overall story began to take shape. 

It involved two young people, barely more than Heero's age - a dark-haired boy and a girl with short, light brown hair. Heero hardly ever saw their faces, but he remembered that, once, he'd seen the girl's green eyes…a green that haunted his thoughts for days after he had the dream. There were other people in his dreams too, ranging from a normal-seeming although unusually handsome blond swordsman to wolf-men and cat-girls.

They were in a world made restless by war and invasion. The land they'd been in had been burned to the ground by the enemy, and the two had escaped on a white dragon. The white dragon figured prominently in almost every dream, though sometimes the dragon was not a dragon but a large armored figure. The enemy was an empire, but was personified in a coldly calculating man, connected to the boy in some deep, unfathomable way; in a silver-haired youth who hunted the two…and in the burning of a city.

Having these dreams had their toll on Heero's body. On the nights he had them, he awoke the next morning feeling even more tired than before he had slept…as if his body was subject to the rigors the people in the dream experienced, as if he had lived the dream himself. And the dreams had been coming every night, now. Actually, it was surprising that Duo was the only one who had noticed. 

Heero sighed, and got to his feet. Stripping off his tanktop and jeans, he collapsed onto his bedroll. There was a perfectly good - actually more than good, more like sinfully luxurious - four-poster bed in the room, but night after night Heero scorned it, preferring to use a simple futon. No matter how much Quatre pleaded and tried to insist that it would be better for his back, Heero never slept there. The only concession he would make was using a pillow. The others looked upon the matter with wry amusement at Heero's stubbornness. Wufei, seeming to feel as though Heero was challenging him, even though Heero had not said anything to the other Asian boy, had recently dragged in his own bedroll and now Quatre had two teammates to convince. 

A small smile flickered over Heero's face at the memory of Quatre's earnest efforts, the first smile on his face for a long time. The smile was brief, a candle-flame flashing in the darkness only to be blown out almost immediately, and he slipped back into his dreams with a marble-cold face. 

'We're going to report at Preventers HQ next week,' he thought. 'Sally will be there. Maybe she can give me something so I don't look so bad that Duo starts getting paranoid. Until then…' he shrugged. No need to worry. Tomorrow they'd have a mission, and this matter of the mysterious battle rage was a more pressing issue. He needed his rest. Not that he'd get any if the dreams came again…

***

Hitomi van Fanel clung tightly to her husband, tears leaking from her green eyes. Van could do little else but stroke his wife's shoulder-length hair, whispering into her ear. This inability to help his wife tore at him until he was quite ready to hit something. "I…I had a nightmare, Van," Hitomi told him, gulping in air. "There was a little boy there…and he had a gun. A gun, Van! No one that young should have to touch them!" Van hugged her tighter. According to Hitomi, guns were horrible killing machines from her world, little metal wands that shot out more death and destruction than the Guymelefs ever did. Her horror of them was very real. "And he…he…was killing people. Van, how could a child _do_ that? What could have happened to him to make him like that? Oh Van…" She buried her face into his shoulder, hugging him tighter than he would have expected someone with such slender arms to be able to.

"Shh…shh…" Van soothed her. She got so worked up over things like these. Ever since Rian had disappeared, Hitomi could not bear to see a child maltreated in any way. Normally strong and firm, she broke down into tears at the sight of hungry or sad children. She had been known to break off meetings with foreign diplomats or visiting nobility to attend to little children who wandered into the palace with big tearful eyes. She could too easily see her baby boy in their place. Van pressed a gentle kiss onto Hitomi's temple, noting that her breathing had evened and her eyes were starting to droop closed into slumber. 

Thanks to her efforts, Fanelia now had another name aside from the Mountain Kingdom. It was now also known as the Children's Haven, and since young ones were very precious to his people, this had made Van's subjects love their queen all the more. They loved her, and at the same time, they wept for her – for the loss of her little son…

_…Riander…_

Van gave the now-sleeping Hitomi a last kiss and rolled onto his back. For a long time after Rian had disappeared, he had devoted all his time to searching for his son. If it weren't for the fact that he had recently appointed several civil leaders who were competent, honest, and extremely loyal to him, the country might have fallen into chaos. But as the seasons passed and no sign of Riander ever showed, he reluctantly turned his attention to other matters. 

Hitomi had tried to reawaken her dormant psychic powers to scry for him, but was never able to obtain so much as a glimpse. She never accepted his death, maintaining that since they hadn't found a body they couldn't say he was dead. 

Caria, little blond Caria, had been destroyed at the loss of her playmate. She hadn't moved from her room for two weeks after she heard the news, worrying her mother and father immensely aside from the loss of Riander. She was sure that it was all her fault, as the Fanelian royals had been traveling to attend _her _birthday party, that Riander was lost. They were very careful never to mention Rian's name around the now-sixteen-year-old princess; the look of self-hatred that sprang up whenever they did so was too intense to bear. 

Chid had also been distraught at the loss of one he called brother, but he had showed exceptional strength in the days following Riander's disappearance. More than anyone would have expected from someone of his young age, he served as a pillar of calm amidst the emotional storm after the tragedy, calming his 'uncles' Van and Allen down as they stalked around looking enraged or helping Dryden organize everything. 

No one knew how he cried himself to sleep at night…no one except Hitomi, who had come in unexpectedly one night. He had hurriedly attempted to stop his tears, but Hitomi had merely smiled sadly at him and told him it was okay to cry…she knew how he felt. She hugged him and he sobbed into her shoulder. She had never spoken of it, but he noticed Allen hanging around close to him after, rather like an overprotective nanny - no doubt on Hitomi's orders. 

As for Allen himself, he was now roaming around the world, traveling from place to place like dust blown on the wind, returning to Asturia only infrequently. And wherever he went, a few questions about new little boys appearing anywhere nearby were sure to be asked. Merle was doing the same thing, but had restricted her roaming to Fanelia, in order to be near her Van-sama.

Van sighed. Even now, ten years since he'd seen his little boy, he could call up the memory of his face as easily as if it had only been a day since he'd seen him, not one decade. The face so like his own…dark blue eyes gazing into his own with such love and trust…dark hair that fell over his forehead almost exactly like Van's did, much to Hitomi's delight - he could still see them, etched so clearly into his mind. 

He could see them, real as life, as the trust in those blue eyes turned to disappointment and betrayal…could see Rian's face scrunch up in that way it always did when he cried, as he cried now…could hear that high, piping voice ask in a tone choked with tears, "Why, daddy? Why didn't you find me?" 

He saw it in his dreams, the nightmares he didn't tell Hitomi about. It was the one secret he kept from her, and one he was determined she never find out. 

***

AN: I'm done! I'm done! Yaaay! (grin) 

_A note on the current situation of the Gundam pilots: It's after EW, but I took the liberty of changing the plotline a bit, in that the Gundams weren't destroyed. Rather, they were pressed into service as the Mobile Suit corps of Preventers, and their pilots remained as such. _

_Because they were so much more powerful than anything else in the world, and their pilots so high in skill, Preventers retained their service in suppressing any problems dealing with Mobile Suits. They have also managed to get Zechs Peacecraft to join in. He will be returning from Mars, accompanied by Lucrezia Noin, to reclaim their Preventer titles of Wind and Fire. Tallgeese III has been rebuilt and is waiting for him. _

_The Gundams are equipped with remote self-destruction devices that could be triggered from Preventers HQ as a safeguard. Also, modifications that could have made the Gundams stronger have not been put into effect, as their current strength level is sufficient for Preventer purposes. Because so few rebel groups have access to Mobile Suits, there are few calls for the Gundams to intervene. _

_When unneeded to pilot the Gundams, Quatre oversees his company, using an office in Geneva, Earth, near Preventers HQ. Duo leaves to help Hilde with her scrapyard on L2. Trowa travels around with the circus, now a profitable outfit that is widely known. All three have access to 24-hour-prepped shuttles and flash-status clearances for all spaceports, so they can be at Preventers HQ within two hours of receiving any call. _

_Heero and Wufei are the only ones who are Preventers full-time, Wufei serving as Sally Po's partner and Heero being an operative of Preventers' newly formed (thanks to a budget increase from the President) Intelligence branch – being the equivalent of the CIA to Preventers' Interpol. _

(looks up at paragraph and blinks) Jeez, I was just going to type a few short sentences-look what turned out. Oh well. Ja ne, minna, and please please please give feedback! Onegai? (puppy-dog eyes) 


	4. End of Innocence

_out of the island_

_into the highway_

_past the places where you might have turned_

_you never did notice_

_but you still hide away_

_the anger of angels who won't return_

            -Everything You Want, Vertical Horizon

Heero awoke at the crack of dawn, hours ahead of his other teammates. The sad part of this was that this had been one of the all-too-rare nights when those strange dreams hadn't haunted his sleep. And God knew he needed every scrap of that he could get. Still, he could not shirk his duty. So, still clad in the boxers and tanktop that were his standard sleepwear, he made his way downstairs.

The safehouse the Preventers had prepared for the five undercover boys looked exactly like a typical suburban dwelling - except for one thing. When you touched a hidden panel on the wall, and the touchscreen beneath the veneer of false wood confirmed your DNA print, the library turned into a fully equipped ready-room. Heero touched the hidden panel and watched, yawning, as bookshelves spun around to reveal consoles and wall screens, as the tables flipped their tops to reveal keyboards and holographic displays, and as a shielding system kicked online. There was enough technology in that single room to make Bill Gates, had he still been alive in AC 196, fall all over himself slobbering in pure techno-lust. The entire shebang had been installed in five hours, and could be uninstalled in two. It was a portable tactics-and-strategy system, which had been developed by a team of the best minds from the Eve Wars and before that. Heero had had a hand in its development, specifically in the part of the system intended for use by Intelligence – the so-called 'spy array'. It was the development of said spy array that caught the eye of Lucas Shaw, the head of the newly formed Preventers Intelligence.

Quicker than Lady Une liked, Shaw had had Heero transferred to Intelligence. Heero had thrived there, and soon had the reputation as the intelligence operative that could accomplish what no other could. He could have been Shaw's deputy director, except that he disliked administrative work. Still, he was more Shaw's right-hand man than the one who _was_ deputy, and could be counted upon to help run the Intelligence directorate, if from an unofficial status.

Heero had worked on the mission briefing the whole day yesterday, but was now up to put on the finishing touches. He watched a map of the terrain slowly rotate above the main holographic display in the central table, sipping from a cup of coffee. Hopefully, the caffeine would keep him alert today – not that he had much confidence in the drink. He could easily refute Duo's claims of him being a druggie, but if Duo had accused him of being addicted to caffeine…

He examined every aspect of the mission he had planned. He found little to correct, but lots to double-check – for his peace of mind, if for nothing else. Heero and Wufei had been on this particular operation for nearly three months already – the other three had arrived yesterday for the final strike.

The entire thing was codenamed OPERATION: WIPEOUT. A faction of discontented OZ and White Fang people had begun making trouble. This country, in the European region, was where their forces were headquartered – in fact, outside of this country, there were no WhiteClaw forces to speak of. Heero and Wufei, along with Sally Po, had been in the region for months. Wufei and Sally took down the known rebel cells, leaving as little trace as possible. More than half of their sting operations were accredited to disgruntled police, drug and weapon runners, private crime lords – this new faction were not exactly above the law. Heero was there to gather the information to make these sting operations possible, but often he was right alongside Wufei and Sally in the takedowns.

Things had changed when they found out that WhiteClaw had somehow, impossibly, acquired a contingent of Mobile Suits – Aries and Virgos and even a Cancer. Upon learning that, Heero and Wufei's Gundams were immediately shipped to them, while Sally went back to Geneva to give a first-person report to Lady Une.

Night sorties were the _modus operandi_, taking out whatever Aries or Virgos WhiteClaw sent out for whatever objectives they had. They didn't know all of the missions WhiteClaw planned, but that was okay. Their objective was to whittle away at the WhiteClaw's forces until a strike at the base was more like a reasonable venture with good chances of victory and survival rather than a suicidal run much like the last battle against the Libra. One of that per lifetime was enough for most people, thank you very much.

That was why Trowa, Quatre and Duo were there. Wufei and Heero had finally decided that it was a go. Today they would strike down WhiteClaw – for good.

'I've been hanging around too long with Wufei,' Heero thought, shaking his head over the steam coming up from his coffee mug.

***

The sun was well above the horizon before everyone was up. Heero was on his third cup of java, and everyone else was on his first. The five pilots were in the ready room, watching the central holo-display. Heero and Wufei stood next to the table, arms crossed, two dragons surveying future conquests – and the minions who would carry it out for them.

At least that was one thought that crossed Duo's mind as he looked at them. Heero glared at him, as if he knew what Duo was thinking, and the American boy hurriedly concentrated on the map.

Heero turned his attention back to the display. "Alright," he began. "This is the blueprint of WhiteClaw's base. It's not underground or hidden by any physical land characteristics – it's in plain sight in the middle of this region…" And he jabbed a finger at one area on the map. The computer zoomed in on the area he pointed at, showing the squat complex in full three-dimensional detail.

Wufei took over. "The base is protected by a stealth technology that was also applied onboard the Libra. Aside from that, there is a detection network that allows WhiteClaw to see and – they hope – destroy any vehicle heading towards their base before the people inside said vehicles see the base. That hasn't happened so far, because their complex is in a rather deserted area."

"Duo, you take Deathscythe, in cloaked mode, and take out these towers." The map spun around about forty degrees. On the side of the complex now facing the five boys, two towers were ringed by red circles that suddenly appeared on the holograph.

"Radio us when you have. Breaking radio silence means they'll pick you up on their scanning frequencies, but that's okay – taking out those towers means disabling their detection system. That's when we'll attack."

Heero started again. "We need to aim especially at these areas – here, here, here and here." As he pointed at the map, certain parts of the 3D base model began to glow slightly.

"Trowa, you and Quatre will attack this area. It's the ground based one, and so your ammo will be needed, Trowa, to take it out, while Quatre's heavy armor will be of good use in withstanding and taking out their own guns. Wufei will be raking the fuel tanks and power generator. With any luck, his flamethrower will cause the tanks to explode. Duo, you're in charge of taking out the missile silos, anti-aircraft defense systems, and any ground-based weapon that they could use to defend themselves. Got it? I'll provide air support – that is, I'll be keeping as many of the Mobile Suits as possible from reaching you guys. Feel free to join in whenever you want, of course," he told them, grinning ferally.

A strange notion crossed Duo's mind – why was it that Heero was always at his most just before a battle?

***

Heero stared at his viewscreen, drumming his fingers on the dash. His sensors showed nothing around him but a few high-flying eagles. All was quiet. All was peaceful, in spite of the firestorm they were about to send down on WhiteClaw's head. All was serene.

Heero was getting bored.

He'd drunk three cups of coffee before he'd left (Starbucks was beginning to love him) and he had been able to catch three hours of sleep last night – practically luxurious, compared to the hours he'd been keeping lately. Still, he could feel the gray void of slumber beckoning to him. This non-action wasn't helping any, either.

His head slumped to one side, and his eyes began to drift closed. The lack of sleep was telling even upon his enhanced body…

_"You're not my brother!"_

_"I'm not that badly off that I need a woman to worry about me."_

_"Don't cry, mother. I'll be the king instead of my big brother. And someday, I'll be as strong as father. So…please don't cry anymore, mother…"_

"The towers are out!" Duo's voice, excited and loud, came over Wing's speakers, startling Heero out of his sleep. The voices slipped away…from both mind and memory. He was snapped out of sleep into the battle now beginning.

"I repeat, the towers are out! Go, go, go!" Duo yelled.

Heero shook his head as if physically flinging away the last remnants of sleepiness, cursing himself for giving into his lethargy. Wing Zero, in fighter mode, had been waiting in the sky, well out of the range of WhiteClaw's radar. Now Heero jerked the stick and Wing dived, like a falcon on the hunt. The sleek mecha sliced through the purple evening clouds like a beam saber through metal, making a path in the haze through which the stars glimmered for a brief moment before being covered again.

Wing Zero broke through the cloud cover, executing a tight barrel roll as the metal began to shift and change from a next-generation fighter aircraft to a Gundam. The beam saber shot out of its containment into Wing Zero's hand, activating and shining on a Mobile Suit already gleaming from dim starlight.

Below him, the radar controllers in the WhiteClaw control center had collective apoplexy as their radars suddenly showed one…two…three, four, five…FIVE Gundams!

"Gundams!" one controller managed to shriek half-hysterically into the comm, alerting his superiors. His colleagues were less composed, as they began to scream and break down. Their voices overlapped one another in a rising cacophony of panic as they began to call upon their God(s) and to voice aloud their convictions of impending doom.

"Oh my god, we're going to die!"

"No enemy who sees a Gundam lives!"

"I…In the name of the Father, and of the S…Son, and of th…the H..H…Holy S..s…Spirit-t-t-t…"

"Allah preserve and protect us!"

Meanwhile, Heero watched as Mobile Suits boiled out of the base like a horde of angry bees. There were a lot of them…more than Wufei and he had anticipated. Still, instead of tensing or reevaluating his chances of success…or even considering that the increased number of opponents could mean defeat… Heero merely smirked.

He dove into their midst…and let the darkness take him.

***

"This is Trowa: mission complete."

"Duo here: I'm all done!"

"This is Quatre: the objectives have been reached."

"Wufei: mission accomplished."

Heero shook his head groggily. "Ninmu…ninmu kanryo." As awareness returned slowly to the cobalt-eyed pilot, he noticed that the others were heading back to the hidden hangar, and that it was now late twilight. It had been afternoon when he'd started, but he was becoming used to losing awareness and recollection of entire portions of the day.

He didn't know if he should be concerned about that fact.

Below them, the field around the complex (which was now a collection of half-ruined concrete things unrecognizable as buildings any longer) had been transformed into a virtual graveyard of scattered Mobile Suit parts, illuminated by fires dotting the field. He closed his eyes slowly and turned his head away.

He punched a code in, and let Wing Zero fly autopilot back.

As the five Gundams moved over the landscape, Duo keyed a private link to Heero.

"Heero," he said, hesitantly. "You didn't have to kill all of the MS."

Heero remained silent.

***

As the five boys disembarked and let the mechanics scurry over to overhaul the Gundams, Heero suddenly noticed a thin, but deep shoulder gash. He stroked a finger over it hesitantly, sucking the finger as it came away covered in blood. Shaking his head over how he had been so deep in battle-trance he hadn't noticed being banged around enough to get injured, he left to get a bandage.

When he returned, the others had finished making their reports. Heero sighed – usually he was the first one done – and set to work. By the time he had finished typing it up and sending it to Lady Une, the others had left for the safehouse.

***

The other boys had ridden the Jeep Cherokee back 'home', so Heero checked out the black motorbike he'd been keeping stored at the hangar. As two young technicians in obvious awe of the pilot - who was in fact younger than they – wheeled the motorcycle out, Heero ran his eyes over the machine in a swift but thorough check.

The cycle, though legally owned by Preventers and only allotted to him because of his position, was as much his as Wing Zero was. Heero had spent a lot of his free time and quite a chunk of his salary tinkering with it. It was the closest thing he had to a hobby. And it had served him well in this city, wheeling him from contact to place back to safehouse…and outrunning quite a few pursuers too. This city had a lot of gangs.

Heero was gratified – and relieved – to notice the black cycle was still in pristine condition. Of course, no hint of that showed on his face as he pulled the helmet over his head and straddled the cycle. He tied his Preventers jacket around his waist, to prevent it from flapping in the wind when he started to ride. Belatedly, almost as he was about to leave, he realized the two technicians were standing in salute, eyes on him. He raised his hand to his head and threw off his own salute before speeding off.

***

Heero roared up to the house on his cycle. He pushed the door open wearily, not even glancing at the dining room where the other pilots were munching on pizza.

"Hey! Aren't you going to eat dinner with us, Heero?" Duo called out before taking a bite of pizza.

"Iie," Heero replied, before remembering that Japanese wasn't the native language of anyone else in the room. He repeated his answer, in English this time. "No…I'm going to bed."

"Suit yourself," Duo said, and shrugged before turning back to his pizza. Heero didn't know it, but Duo had searched his room – quite thoroughly – before Heero had arrived back at the safehouse. He hadn't found any hidden stashes of anything, drugs or otherwise, and so while his suspicion was far from allayed, he at least remained fairly sure that Heero wouldn't go on a drug binge this night.

Quatre waved and called, "Goodnight!" while Trowa and Wufei nodded at him. Heero ignored them all, but they were used to that.

He climbed up the stairs to his room, and collapsed wearily onto his bedroll. He barely remembered to kick off his shoes before he fell asleep…

***

The head mechanic called down to his assistant. "Hey, we'll start with Wing Zero first. It's the least damaged out of all five of them. Practically the only damage is that slash to the right shoulder section. Pass me up the welder, will you?"

The young woman who was the assistant mechanic nodded, and passed him the requested tool. The head mechanic pulled down his faceplate, and set to work.

***

Quatre, Duo, Wufei and Trowa lounged in the living room, quiet and relaxed. It was a scene out of a postcard promoting total ease. Wufei and Quatre were engaged in a chess game, which Duo watched avidly while munching on a bag of Cadbury's Milk that served as a dessert. Trowa sat a little distance away, engrossed in a book. Occasionally he would glance up and look at the chess game.

Suddenly the comfortable silence surrounding them was split abruptly by a pained scream. With a startled look at each other, all four boys bolted for the source of the scream – Heero's room.

The door was locked, and nothing but Heero's code would open it. Wufei cursed, hauled out his katana and sliced the lock off the wall. Hissing and sparking, the door slid open, and the four boys rushed in.

Heero was thrashing in his bed, screaming. It took all four pilots to hold him down. Heero's head whipped from side to side, and he screamed something in English, then in Japanese. Finally, he stilled. The other pilots breathed sighs of relief. Then his eyes flew open, glazed and flat, and he began to convulse.

As the tremors wracking his slender frame began to subside, Heero turned his head and looked at his teammates with glassy cobalt eyes. "_Avuge-n kuaru e jia-bo?"_ he asked them, in a tone that was perfectly normal, if a little angry. The quiet, deliberate voice was a marked contrast to the violent screams of earlier… yet the unfamiliar words were more frightening to the pilots than the screaming had been.

***

Heero alternated between fits of screaming and thrashing and – more alarming to the others – lying eerily still, save for slight convulsions, and speaking in gibberish. The pilots took turns to stand watch all through the long, long night.

***

Preventers Headquarters was, on this day, a maelstrom of human activity. There had been a decisive strike against WhiteClaw just completed, after all, and all that was left was the mopping up. If a person wasn't finishing off his duties and records, he or she was partying hard – the celebration that the Gundam pilots were saving for tomorrow, when they had the energy.

The exception to this general bedlam was a large room, quiet in the muffled way an air-conditioned, wall-to-wall carpeted corner office is. This room was the office of Lady Une, head of Preventers, and where she was currently poring over the mission reports she had just received from the Gundam pilots. Lady Une was just about to start on Heero's report, the last in the stack, when she was called away by the flashing light on her table's inset console. Lady Une turned away from the report as the vidcomm pinged, indicating a call. She turned it on, a bit irritated to have to set aside the reports, only to face the writer of one of the reports.

"Hello, Duo…" she started uncertainly. "What…"

"We have a problem," Duo interrupted her.

***

"And so, that's what happened," finished Duo. Lady Une looked at the screen, a troubled, shocked look in her brown eyes. "What could have happened to make him like that?" she asked faintly.

 "I think I know." He took a deep breath, and looked at Lady Une squarely. "I think Heero's been taking drugs."

***

AN: Revised version of End of Innocence up. Yay! ^_^ That particular sword over my head is now gone, and this chapter no longer inspires me to lose all confidence in myself when I look at it. Phew. Oh yeah, the chapter notes (warning: extremely long-winded!):

(1) The entire WhiteClaw situation is currently the most important thing in the world to the UES (United Earth Sphere) government – at least to the ones cleared for the highest level of security; the media and most of the world do not know they exist. For the past three months, the majority of the Preventers have been gathering information about WhiteClaw and preventing leakage of said information. Aside from the main Po-Chang team, (with its unofficial member Heero Yuy, who was _supposed_ to keep to Intelligence) there were fourteen other undercover strike teams, who were pulled out once they caught wind of WhiteClaw's Mobile Suits and OPERATION: WIPEOUT started. Mechanics, technicians and other support personnel have been brought in to keep OPERATION: WIPEOUT running smoothly, along a small troop of Preventers to keep the support personnel safe. Add the five Gundam pilots now taking out WhiteClaw's Mobile Suit forces, and you have around seventy-five people now in the region and working on the operation, and two hundred in bases all over the world who have been assigned to the situation. This is the most complicated endeavor the Preventers have ever undertaken.

(2) Lucas Shaw is the head of Preventers Intelligence, an organization that supports and augments Preventers but has a certain degree of autonomy. Lucas Shaw is a Colonist from the L-1 cluster. During the Eve Wars he held no official position in the rebellion against Earth, Oz or White Fang, but he still gained a reputation of the man on Earth and Colonies who could get the information you needed, provided you could meet his requirements. He worked on a freelance basis and somehow managed to evade the Colonies', Oz's and White Fang's attempts to enlist him, although he accepted Lady Une's offer easily enough. He has no family. He looks on the game of intelligence and counter-intelligence as the greatest challenge he could have and as the best way to live his life meaningfully. He is stern and detail-conscious with all but the few he trusts, with whom he is gruffly good-natured. He looks upon Heero as his especial protégé, and the assassin-turned-pilot-turned-intelligence-operative has managed to learn quite a few things from the sixty-one-year-old man.

(3) The black motorcycle: I was thinking something sleek, slim and efficient, like one of the Japanese street racers. (hey, that descrip could fit Heero too…freaky. o.0;;) Not a Harley-Davidson, that'd be something more for Duo, and not a dirt bike – that's what Wufei rides! (grins) Seriously though, the black bike is something like a next-next-next (hey, AC 196's got to be seriously into the future) generation advanced Kawasaki or Suzuki that was pretty cool to begin with and became even cooler with Heero's advanced tinkering. Heero really loves his black cycle, though he as usual denies attachment to anything. It is his hobby and his mode of stress relief to drive/repair/tinker the cycle. It is difficult to say which machine is more precious to him: Wing or the cycle.

(4) The part about Heero outrunning street gangs on his cycle is less because he wanted to than because many youths passed out on the streets could call attention to him. Don't worry, I haven't made Heero into a wuss – he could still kick their asses three ways from Sunday. ^_^

(5) The part about Japanese – see, here's my theory. I highly doubt that Japanese suddenly becomes an in-thing, such that everyone can speak it. I also don't take to the theory that Japanese becomes the new international standard language because Japanese is an insanely complicated language. An international language should be simpler for everyone to learn, like maybe one of the Latin or Romantic languages. (well…I think they're easier to learn) So when Heero speaks in Japanese, no one is going to understand him unless they're Japanese themselves. Duo is not going to say 'baka' or 'sugoi'…at least not in this fic. Same situation if Quatre speaks Arabic, Wufei speaks Chinese, or Trowa speaks…whatever the hell his native tongue is. For all we know it could be Tagalog. (coughs) Okay, I think I've ranted long enough…

(6) The first line of gibberish Heero speaks, "_Avuge-n kuaru e jia-bo?" _ is what Van says in the first episode to Hitomi, Amano and Yukari. It translates to "What are you, devils?" I found the exact spelling of the words from the Episode 1 Story Notes from the _Escaflowne Compendium, _which can be found at http://www.anime.net/escaflowne

(7) I really like to make chapter notes, did anyone notice?


	5. What Dreams May Come

_Reach the stars and fly a fantasy_

_Dream a dream, and what you see will be_

_Rhymes that keep their secrets_

_Will unfold behind the clouds_

_And there beyond the rainbow _

Is the answer to a neverending story 

            -Neverending Story, New Found Glory

***

Duo reached over and toggled the connection to Preventers Headquarters off. He remained in front of the communications console for a long, silent moment, trying to gather his thoughts. Finally, shaking his head, he rose and left the room.

Before going down the stairs, he stepped inside Heero's room to check on the Japanese pilot. Heero was still asleep, his deep even breaths filling the room with a semblance of peace that Duo found ironic. Heero's arms and legs were tied down to the bedposts with a length of nylon rope. Knowing that Heero was fully capable of bending steel, Duo had no real hopes of the rope actually restraining him for long, but the bell tied onto it would at least let them know if he began thrashing again.

He went downstairs, snagging a cup of coffee from the kitchen before heading into the living room. The other three pilots were there, each holding a mug of coffee in his hands. Bodies crying out for sleep but minds refusing to allow it had driven them to caffeine. There had been a surprising amount and variety of coffee in the safehouse; Wufei had said it was Heero's, adding another piece of evidence to Duo's theory. Duo knew – and told the others – how druggies sometimes used large amounts of caffeine to counteract the crashes a drug high brought. 

"Lady Une's flying over," he told the others as he sat down. "She'll be here by morning."

Trowa and Wufei nodded, while Quatre gave a tired sigh of relief. "How's Heero?" he asked Duo.

"Sleeping like a baby," Duo reported, taking a big gulp of his java as he did so. "Let's hope he stays like that until Lady Une gets here."

* * *

Lady Une barked orders to her secretary as she began preparing to fly to the Gundam pilots' safehouse. Two other gofers scurried around, packing her papers and arranging her shuttle flight.

Still snapping commands to the three harassed young women who trailed her down the hallway, Lady Une began striding swiftly to the airdock. For something like this to happen, _now_, right when she'd thought the stress of the WhiteClaw was over... Actually, considering that Heero was _the_ top intelligence operative in the world, and that a Heero in a fit or a Heero with a drug problem could cause all sorts of extremely sensitive data to end up in the wrong hands, this could rapidly develop into a worse situation than WhiteClaw…

* * *

Relena had been at the spaceport to meet with Noin and Milliardo, her brother, and was now accompanying them as they went to report to Lady Une. The two had just arrived from Mars, ready to be reinstated in the Preventers corps. Relena decided to go along with them; she needed to give Une a copy of the revised budget anyway. She had managed to wrangle a substantial increase for the Preventers…

All three were on the way to Une's office, watching with amusement the celebratory parties still going on throughout the building, when they bumped into the Preventers Commander herself.

Almost as surprised by the near-collision as they were, Lady Une stared at them until Milliardo broke the silence. "Er…Preventer Wind reporting in for duty, ma'am…?" The last word ended in a question as Lady Une ground the heel of her hand into her forehead, muttering, "Damn! Damn, damn, damn!" 

She looked at the three and offered an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Zechs – " Zechs made a slight face, but he was expecting it; practically the only people who called him Milliardo were Relena and Noin, and even they forgot sometimes… "- Noin, Miss Darlien. A…situation…has arisen with the WIPEOUT operation that I need to supervise. I apologize; I cannot keep my appointment with you today. Could we reschedule?"

The two Peacecraft siblings inclined their heads in gracious acceptance, recognizing the flustered Preventer head's apology as genuine. However, Noin frowned in confusion. "I thought that op was over," she said, gesturing at the celebrations still at full-blast around them. "What came up?" she asked, Preventers agent in her coming to the fore. 

"Er…" Lady Une really did not want to admit such a huge blow to the Preventers hierarchy, with one of the best people in the organization possibly taken out – and she especially did not want to tell these three, each of whom had personal ties with Heero. 

But the decision was taken out of her hands when Lucas Shaw stormed up to her. "What is this I hear about Agent Yuy being taken to a hospital for drug-testing…ma'am?" He barely remembered to add the honorific at the end, proof of how this infamously calm and well-mannered man was upset. He had pitched it in a low voice, but it still carried over to the three standing nearby, whose eyes widened in shock.

In the end, the shuttle flying to the Gundam pilots' safehouse had three more passengers than expected. It would have been four, had Une not managed to convince Shaw to remain behind to coordinate things first. 

* * *

Duo straightened from his slouch, jolted out of his half-doze by the doorbell. Vainly trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes, he half-stumbled over to the door and wrenched it open. On the doorstep stood three impatient Preventers and an even more impatient Vice Foreign Minister. 

Lady Une started to say something, but looked at Duo and abruptly closed her mouth. "God, Maxwell, didn't you sleep?" 

Duo yawned. "No, not really. It was sort of hard, when you live in fear of Heero having yet another fit and…"

_"Yet another? _Just how many times has he gone into fits?" Lady Une demanded.

"Eh, a few times," Duo replied as the five of them went into the house. "He completely shredded a coil of thick nylon rope when he was thrashing, once. He's asleep now; Wufei's drawn guard duty and Quat and Tro are asleep in their rooms." 

They were in the living room now. Duo took a big swig of semi-warm coffee before remembering to offer his 'guests' some. "Wanna cup?" he asked them.

"Er, no thanks, Duo," Noin answered, eyeing the brownish liquid warily. Everyone else nodded in eager agreement.

"Can we see him?" Relena asked, practically on her toes from sheer anxiety. Duo managed to grin tiredly as he quipped, "Wondered when you'd get around to that, princess," using his nickname for Relena.

Zechs glared at Duo's back, offended and slightly jealous of Duo's familiarity with his younger sister as they climbed the stairs. 

They entered Heero's room, blinking at the sudden darkness. Wufei sat by the door, back to the wall and bared katana laid across his knees. His forehead was resting on the blade, and soft snoring emanated from his direction. 

Duo snorted, and roughly nudged the sleeping boy's ribcage with his foot. Yelping in pain, Wufei sprang to his feet. 

"What was that for, Maxwell?" he yelled. "Stupid (untranslatable Chinese insult), I should…" He cut off suddenly as Duo, smirking, jerked a thumb at Lady Une.

Wufei stiffened in salute. "Commander."

Lady Une nodded in acknowledgement. Relena was already over by Heero's bedside, eyes wide as she took in his pale skin – too pale – and the dried sweat tracks marking it, the irregular, shallow breathing. He shook his head from side to side, slowly and labouredly, as though he was fighting some collar on his neck. He muttered softly, switching between English and Japanese rapidly.

Relena traced the outline of his suffering face with one finger, almost unaware of what she was doing. She took her hand back slowly, clutching it to her chest. "Lady Une," she said, softly. "He's running a fever."

Noin was at the bedside at those words, feeling Heero's sweat-damp skin for herself. "Relena's right," she said tensely. "He's very hot…" 

Duo looked worried. "He didn't seem sick earlier…sure, he was raving and delirious…but I mean, he wasn't feverish or anything…" 

"Maybe his wound got infected," Zechs said, coming up behind his sister to study the boy lying on the bed. His blue eyes narrowed slightly. It was hard for him to accept that the small, seemingly-frail figure lying here was Heero Yuy – Heero was his rival, a fellow pilot and soldier, and occasionally a cause of concern whenever his sister seemed a bit too worried about him…but never this. 

Never this.

Zechs shook his head, and then pointed to the bandage wrapped around Heero's left shoulder. It was dark with dried blood – a lot of it. Duo and Wufei looked at each other with an expression that seemed to defy words. "How did we miss that?" Duo asked the other boy. 

Wufei shrugged, though his face looked slightly sheepish. Well, what passed for sheepish on Wufei. "It wasn't like Yuy had any trouble using his arm last night. It was like it wasn't even injured."

Noin interrupted. "That's because it isn't." She had peeled back the bandage, and underneath the bloodied cloth was an expanse of unmarked, unbroken skin. There was no hint of any wound that could have bled enough to mark the bandage like it was – there wasn't even a scar. 

"The hell?" Duo demanded. He shoved in beside Noin (the bedside was rather crowded now) and stared at Heero's uninjured arm. "So…apparently he wrapped a bloody bandage around his shoulder for no reason whatsoever?" He shook his head in disbelief.

"Can we forget the bandage?" Relena asked, voice steely in the way it only got when she was basically shaming/intimidating the entire lawmaking body of the United Earth Sphere into supporting pacifism. "The important thing now is to check what is making him sick! An uninjured arm can wait, no matter what's wrapped around it!" She looked at them all with a regal blue-eyed gaze that not even her brother could match.

"Relena's right," Une said briskly. "I've already called in at a local hospital to make arrangements. They're trustworthy, they'll not leak us to the media or anyone else," she reassured Relena, who was beginning to open her mouth. "I know the hospital director." 

She turned to Duo and Wufei. "Wake up the others. We'll take the van we brought to the hospital; it's better than the Jeep you have, it's got more room. Zechs, Noin, help the boys carry Heero out to the van. Wufei, put the house's security system to Code Alpha," naming the highest level of alert that the safehouse could go to, and one that basically ensured that no one would be getting in without the current inhabitants' say-so…or a beam cannon.

Relena put in, "I'm coming too." Une nodded, knowing better than to argue. Noin elbowed Zechs, who knew no such thing and was beginning to open his mouth. "Do you really think that Relena would stay here or go back to Sank? With Heero like that?" she whispered in Zechs's ear. He scowled but acquiesced.

Quatre and Trowa entered the room then. After saluting Une and greeting the three newcomers, they got down to business. Wufei left, going to the ready room to prep the security system. The others lifted Heero off the bed, Zechs and Duo slinging him between them, the other two flanking them. It wasn't that Heero was especially heavy; actually he weighed the least of them all. It was in case he awoke that they surrounded him. Heero began to stir as they lifted him off the bed, head shaking more firmly. He let out a long groan, his eyelids flickering slightly.

Quatre looked at his awakening teammate and sighed. He looked vaguely disconcerted as he readied a syringe and inserted the long needle into Heero's arm. The boy gave a long exhaling sigh, and was still. 

* * *

They checked Heero into the hospital. During the ride, it had been necessary to tranquilize Heero once more – Noin, who had been privy to Sally's rants about Heero's unusual medical files, explained that somehow, a part of Heero's brain could instruct his glands to release body-manufactured chemicals that could null or counter any chemical imbalances. 

In other words - it took him a lot quicker to recover from tranquilizer shots than most people. 

They told the doctor in charge this, and also - reluctantly - that Heero could be a danger to the medical staff if he awoke. So, they set up an IV drip in his room with a liberal amount of tranquilizer in it. Heero would remain asleep until the tests were done. 

The doctor who drew the blood sample from the patient's arm couldn't remember having such a large audience. Four boys, one man, one girl and two women watched as the red liquid slowly filled the syringe he had inserted into the vein, with such intent looks that he really could not help but feel rather nervous. When it was done, he nigh-well fled to the lab. 

Thank god technology had improved so that urine samples were no longer needed. He could not imagine trying to obtain that kind of sample under that kind of scrutiny. 

* * *

The dreams had increased as time had passed. It was as though his mind had been throwing up unconscious, yet powerful barriers against those dreams (he refused to call them visions) but with each dream that had gone through a crack in said barrier, the dreams gained more of a foothold, the cracks of the dream-barrier had widened. The more he dreamed...the more the dreams would come.

And now, he was trapped within slumber, no period of wakefulness to escape - yes, that was the word, escape - to, no real world to help him push the strange, fantastic images away. No barriers; not anymore.

The dreams themselves began to change. Now they weren't moving events for him to watch as an impartial observer - now they were still, sharp-edged images, thrown at him with increasing speed and intensity. They flicked from one to the other quickly, leaving him to make the connections on his own. Strangely, he did; like, after seeing those leopard twins placed on a strange bed, he knew that they were having their blood replaced with some strange substance to make their battle more certain; he knew they were doing it for that man with the pale blue hair, the man with the strange connection to the boy with the white dragon; and he knew that it would, somehow, kill them. And then he knew that the silver-haired boy was not at all what he seemed, after a single glimpse of him/her...he knew that the boy with the white dragon had wings, and that the wings were considered an accursed mark, even though all he saw was the girl with the green eyes holding a feather....

He knew, somehow. He knew it all.

* * *

In a place that was impossibly distant, and not only in terms of spatial relationships, another shared his plight. Only this was no young boy dreaming of dragons and swords; she was a queen who had a husband going nearly out of his mind with worry, worry about his green-eyed queen, worry about this coma she seemed to have lapsed into. And she dreamed not of dragons, but of giant war machines; not of swords, but of guns.

But both dreamt, and learnt, a story of war. And both would know its entirety by the time they awoke. 

* * *

A red stone long dormant began to glow. 

* * *

_AN: Whoa, it has been a while since I worked on any of my fics, ne? Gomen, gomen.... I've been busy with school (I hate third year) having periodic nervous breakdowns about college (any Filipinos out there with tips on how to apply for college abroad?) and working on a pair of independent story projects. (none fanfic, though one was supposed to be a GW alternate universe before it morphed...)_

_I should be working on my SATs, but I had to finish this. Anyway, as you can see, nothing really happens in this chapter...it's mostly build-up. The next few chapters will have some surprises, though... =) Wait and see!_

_As usual, I apologize in advance for any discrepancies in actual medical procedure that I have written. If you spot one, maybe you could pretend that hospital MO has changed in AC 196? ^_^;; _

_Lucas Shaw is very protective of Heero - not only as his best agent, but also in a more personal way...um, maybe you could compare it to Jack Ryan and the Judge's (I forgot his name) relationship in Tom Clancy's novels..._

_And while I have the plot mostly figured out, I lack some stuff to really flesh out the chapters. If anyone has any ideas for what could happen in the next chapters, little stuff you'd like to see, please email me! Or leave a review! It'd really help me get these chapters out faster._

_Anyone interested in doing fanart?_

_Plug: Someone please read and review my new SRATSS fic! Please? I've tried to make it so you don't need to know the series to like it..._

_http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=455636_

_Wow, I sound so kapal. Anyway, thanks for reading, minna! _


	6. Into the Sky

_I'm looking for the King and will find the way  
The truth and the one that gives life _

Payable on Death  
And we're seeking the wise, nowhere to run 

_Looking for the Son_

            -P.O.D__

            She found herself floating in space, suspended in an eternity of black interspersed with points of brilliance. She was almost exactly between two blue-green spheres: Gaea and Earth. And perhaps the term 'floating' was not quite accurate to describe her condition. To float, one needed a body which was to be floated.

            She had none. 

            She had no wings to support her in the non-existent air, no Guymelef to encase her in an interplanetary journey. She needed none; she was a disembodied consciousness, receiving images and feelings without the eyes and body needed to receive them. And then she was falling…

            She was falling towards Earth – but because she had no body, she felt no rush of velocity, no atmosphere-entry friction, only seeing things blur past her with the speed of riding something a thousand times faster than the bullet trains of her youth. She glanced from side to side, taking in the scenery of the homeworld she had not seen for years – and somehow, certain images were being seared into her mind, clean and sharp, like she could never forget them…

            …a swirly white cloudbank which she plunged through, a blade through silk, towards the western hemisphere of Earth….

            …a mountain-range, snow-topped and very black against the contrasting brilliance of the snow, rocky and rough and sharp…

            …veering to the left, now, towards a flatter region, all green vegetation that was not as lush as the tropical islands of the equator, but beautiful nonetheless, and with sandy ground too…

            …a town all tiny and small below her, but busy and bustling…

            …towards a white building, sleek and modern…

            …and then she stopped. 

            She saw the sign in front of the building – the hospital – reading the Western alphabet with all the ease of a student who had gained high marks in her high school English classes. She saw a boy with remarkably long hair done in a braid walk into the hospital, a plastic bag of McDonald's food cradled in his arms. She followed him.

            He walked through corridors gleaming with the sterile cleanliness typical of hospitals; veered to the left; walked into an elevator. Hitomi took careful note of the directions, though she wasn't sure why. Somewhere on the third floor, the braided boy greeted a group of other people, mostly teenagers his own age but with three young adults in the group as well. They conversed in low voices, before the braided boy began distributing the food that had been in the bag. A sandy-haired girl stood up then and walked into a hospital room – Hitomi trailed after her, feeling the same urge to follow as she had felt for the braided boy.

            The door swung open. Hitomi took one look at the still, pale figure lying on the hospital bed. She gasped in shock…

*** 

…and sat up. Her green eyes were wide and staring, her breath coming in harsh, startled gasps. She could geel her thin nightgown sticking to her back with sweat – it was an unpleasant sensation, as was the fact that her bangs were clumped together, again with sweat. 

She heard a long in-drawn breath, and turned her head to see Van seated at her bedside. His clothes were rumpled, and there was a distinct mark on his face that meant that he had fallen asleep with his cheek pressed against a blanket-seam. "Hitomi!" he cried out, uncharacteristically emotional as he enveloped his wife in a tight embrace, relief giving extra strength to his arms. "V…Van…?" she asked, voice soft from disuse, as the Ryujinbito king nuzzled his face into her hair, pressing kisses on the top of her head.

He didn't reply, silent as he held Hitomi in his arms, face hidden.

"You've been in a coma for three days." 

Hitomi's eyes snapped to the doorway of the room – the royal bedroom, her mind identified her surroundings – to see Millerna there. The blonde Asturian queen moved into the room, sleep-deprived blue eyes checking her friend over for any sign of lingering illness. Gaea's premier healer smiled in satisfaction and relief as her practiced eye detected nothing amiss.

"I'm going to get some of my things, to examine you, Hitomi," Millerna told her. "Try to see if you can pry Van away from you by the time I get back." 

Hitomi nodded dumbly, green eyes far away as she thought back to what she had seen. 

"Van." 

He held onto her.

"Van."

"…"

"VAN!" The thirty-six-year-old ruler looked at her, a little surprise in his dark eyes at the urgency of her tone. Hitomi grabbed him by the shoulders, looking at him very earnestly.

"Van, I know where Rian is. He's alive, Van, Rian's alive, and I know where he is. I know how to go there." 

Van gaped at his wife for one long moment. "Hitomi…Rian's _dead_…"

"He's _not_ dead, Van, he's not! I saw him!" she insisted stubbornly. She grabbed at the Atlantian pendant hidden under her nightgown. Van sighed and was about to press her back into the bed, insisting she get more rest – obviously she was delusional – when he noticed something.

The stone was glowing.

"Wha -…?" A light blazed forth from the pendant, coalescing into a column of radiance around both Fanelian royals. Van felt himself floating up, drawn by a force like gravity inversed – just like he teleported to Gaea and Earth, all those years ago…

*** 


End file.
